First Person Snapshooter

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The increasingly common gameplay mechanic that has the player taking pictures of enemies, items, NPCs, or features in the environment. This comes in two basic forms: as a sidequest, and as the whole point of a Hidden Object game.

In the sidequest form, either taking pictures allows you to collect or capture your subjects, or you receive a bonus when you take pictures of certain, usually well-hidden things. On platforms without a built-in hard disk, these sorts of games are infamous for either consuming absurd amounts of storage space, or having a painfully restrictive number of photo slots.

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In the Hidden Object version, you identify the hidden objects by taking pictures of them. That's usually the whole game, although there may be minigames as well that use some other mechanic.

In both versions, if the photos are scored beyond "the subject is present in the frame", the AI often has some unique ideas on what makes a good picture.

If the photography switches to a first-person view, then this overlaps with In-Universe Camera.

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Examples:

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Adventure Game

Myst IV: Revelation has a camera feature that can be used to not only capture puzzle solutions, but to also capture pictures of stuff that you think is pretty. Taking lots of photos is also one way to variate and somewhat personalize an event that happens later on in the game. This is carried onwards as one of the functions of your KI in Uru, and another camera in Myst V that also saves your progress into each photo.

Nancy Drew and the Warnings at Waverly Academy (2009) was such an offender with this trope. You have to, at one point, take photos of the students around the school, as well as the school itself. If you are one centimetre out of what the AI thinks is dead perfect, you have to try again. And again. And again. Not to mention that the characters taunt you if you take too long to line up the shot, and one of the students isn't even at the school, so you have to take a picture...of her picture. Gah!

In Firewatch, Henry discovers a camera with a small amount of film left behind by a former park ranger's son. Any pictures he takes will be displayed during the credits, along with the few taken by the previous owner. The photos are then able to be viewed online, and to be physically ordered to the player.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. In regards of the Swamp Tourism contest and the large man who co-runs it, you can earn rupees by snapping up photos of certain things with the Pictobox, and getting a photo of the Deku King (a rare sight) or Tingle (the son the guide was worried about) nets you a Piece of Heart. There's another event in the game triggered by taking a photo of one of the (female) pirates and giving it to the fisherman on Great Bay Coast. There's also the slightly creepy stalker Zora who wants a pic of Lulu, who'll pay you to snap a pic of her while she's grieving the loss of the eggs.

Just getting the Pictobox, as well as upgrading it to the Deluxe version for colour pictographs, spans a sidequest on its own: It all starts with exploring the narrow caves behind Tingle's prison, then showing the Pictobox to Lenzo, then completing three snapshot tasks, then finding a rainbow-coloured firefly in Forest Haven and then giving it to Lenzo (Thankfully, the HD remake omits the requirement for the firefly). This is just one of the various sidequests in Windfall Island that involve giving pictographs to certain characters.

After getting the Deluxe Pictobox, there's an elaborate Sidequest that involves taking pictures of nearly every character, enemy, boss, etc. in the game and delivering them to the Nintendo Gallery to complete a figurine collection (notably, one character only appears if you have a Game Boy Advance and a cable to link it to your Nintendo GameCube, allowing you to complete another sidequest that spans five of the game's dungeons, though this character isn't a requirement for completing the gallery). The HD remake alleviates most of the tedium which comes this sidequest, thanks to the Deluxe Pictobox holding more photos (12 as opposed to 3), the addition of a small icon indicating whether a pictograph is eligible into becoming a figurine and Carlov being able to create multiple figurines per day (as opposed to 1 per day). Thanks to the Tingle Bottle, users could also post pictographs to Miiverse, helping to eliminate the risk of permanently losing the chance to take pictographs of characters or bosses who make limited appearances (after the shutdown of Miiverse in late 2017, the risk is present once again). However, despite the omission of the system link requirements for the other sidequest which makes a certain character appear, there is no indication on how and where to complete this sidequest, and this once optional character is now 'required' to complete the gallery.

There are also sidequests in Windfall Island that require Link to make use of his Pictobox, and they all require the Deluxe upgrade.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The Sheikah Slate has an unlockable Camera rune that is used primarily to take pictures of monster, animals, and items to add them to the Hyrule Compendium. There are also sidequests that require you to take pictures of various environmental features (e.g. a hidden statue, fragments of an ancient plaque) and show them to NPCs.

Beyond Good & Evil was one of the first to use it as a major plot driver, as the main character was an underground reporter charged with digging up the truth about an alien conspiracy. In a variation, she's really a professional photographer. It was also a sidequest: Jade had been hired by a scientific foundation to assist in creating a library of photographs of every animal on the planet. Taking pictures of animals netted the player money and other bonuses.

This is in the demo of the game for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Why do you needed to take good pictures of rhinos and elephants, just because you found a camera somewhere? Because.

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Edutainment Game

The Amazon Trail involves photographing exotic flora and fauna in the jungle in order to fill out your photo album.

Fighting Game

The 3D doujin fighter Line Kill Spirits incorporates a somewhat unusual mechanic for fighting games: the only way to stop your opponent from regenerating after being damaged is to flip up her skirt and take a picture of her panties. This is pretty much the entire point of the game.

Super Smash Bros. Melee has a Camera Mode that allows players to take in-game photographs of their battles from various angles. And in case you're wondering, yes you can do that, too.

First Person Shooter

Borderlands 2: Scooter asks you to take inspiring pictures for a love poem he's working on.

Gravity Bone: "PHOTO-GRAPH THE FIVE BIRDS." Maybe something of a subversion, since each bird self-destructs when you take its picture, so collecting photos may not be the real goal.

Far Cry

Far Cry 3's Camera is used to spot people, animals, and in a unusual side quest, take pictures for a man with questionable intentions.

Far Cry 4 has similar uses for its camera, albeit tagging enemies is less reliant, since the tags on Hunter enemies fade with time, making them harder to track.

Pokémon Snap is literally a first person camera shooter, since the main concept is about taking shots of Pokémon in the wild.

Party Game

There are a few Mario Party minigames that involve taking pictures of things, sometimes just to catch the most things in one photo. In particular, Mario Party DS has a minigame where the player's objective is to take a picture of all other players.

The WarioWare series has a few, including "Picture Perfect" in the original, and the "Shutter" minigame in Game & Wario.

Platform Game

Another old one, with a decent level of justification, the video game interpretation of Darkman had Camera stages where you ran through a basic Hogan's Alley taking shots of your next target. Darkman required photographs to craft his disguises in the film, although for some reason, the more pictures you took increased the amount of time he could stay in disguise, instead of just how good the mask looked.

Donkey Kong 64 has a camera that allows you to "capture" banana fairies for inventory upgrades.

The PS3 and 360 versions of Sonic Unleashed include this. At night, you can travel the hub worlds and snap a picture of someone who isn't exactly the same temperament when you speak to them in the daytime. Doing so will cause you to enter a mini-level to defeat Dark Gaia's mooks within a time period in order to free the person from Dark Gaia's influence.

Way back in the early '90s Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin for the Sega Genesis asked you to take pictures of supervillains before you fought them. You could then sell them in your secret identity between missions to buy more web fluid. Justified, of course, because that's exactly what Peter Parker does in the comics.

FreezeME plays with this, since the main character does use a camera to take pictures of things, but instead of collecting photographs, she uses this power to freeze things in place.

Puzzle Game

The Dark Tales franchise has this feature in two of its titles. It first appears in The Masque of the Red Death, which justifies it with both an achievement (for taking pictures of all possible locations) and also a function; every location photographed gets added to the interactive map, enabling fast travel to that area. It returns in The Fall of the House of Usher, but this time it serves no useful purpose.

Racing Game

Starting from GT4, Gran Turismo allows the player to take a picture of his car, during a saved replay, or in a fixed location. The player can even save these pictures to an USB thumb drive, transfer them to computer, and then examine their perfections very closely. Seriously, a Cadillac Cien in the right light...

The Forza series likewise allows users to freeze replays or single-player races to take pictures with a free-floating camera that allows the user to adjust shutter speed, aperture, and other settings. Forza Motorsport 4 has a screenshot setting so hardcore that its rendered separately on the game's servers and then uploaded straight to the user's profile page in all its 3840x2160 30 MB BMP glory.

Role Playing Game

Dark Chronicle. You take pictures of objects in your surroundings, and then using combinations of those photos as inspiration, create new items. You can also snap pictures of Palm Brinks' inhabitants, who will mug for the camera in their own special pose. Getting particularly difficult snapshots, such as bosses or unique enemy attacks, would also net you points and rewards.

One of the characters of Shadow Hearts 2, Anastasia is armed with a camera which, in addition to providing expanded information on enemies you snap, also allows her to 'capture' certain enemies, copying their signature moves.

One quest in World of Warcraft has the player take a newfangled gnomish image capture device called the "Super Snapper FX" and take a picture of a dangerous turtle. Unfortunately, the flash from the camera makes the turtle more than a little mad. When the picture is taken, an item is left in the player's inventory that shows an image of the turtle.

In Eternal Sonata, Beat's ability to take photos of monsters is the best way to make money throughout most of the game. That is, if you can learn the game's crazy standards for what constitutes as a good picture.

In Final Fantasy XI, an entire side game known as "Pankration" exists that requires "capturing" monsters in a camera like device to be later summoned for a Pokemon-like arena battle. The photos were later used to fund a new type of Bonus Boss fights, likely to drive some traffic towards Pankration as well.

Legend of Legaia has you visit a hot springs resort, where you can buy a Camera Stone from a vendor. It lets you take photographs in various places. If you win a Swimsuit for Noa by winning the dance contest in the Tower of Sol, she'll be wearing it in the pictures.

Anachronox, the Quake II-engine RPG, had this. The main character is a private detective, however, so it makes some sense. He doesn't do much detective work with it during the game, instead spending his time taking pictures of rare and fantastic things.

The World Ends with You plays with this a bit by Joshua, and later Neku using a cell-phone camera to take photos of the past.

Fallout: New Vegas has a quest where you have to take pictures of landmarks to give to Michael Angelo, an agoraphobic neon sign designer in need of inspiration.

Several James Bond games have objectives that require you to take pictures of secret weapons, devices, and such.

In the first Baten Kaitos game, this is the only way to make money beyond the rare gimmick magnus that can be sold (and you want to keep most of them for them to finish changing to register them instead of sell). The amount the photos sell for depends on a number of factors, but the most common are distance (proceeding with a melee attack to get close is often to your benefit), lighting (Light and dark attacks before the camera will make the photo brighter or darker, and getting the balance right is key), and if the enemy blocks the photo (less money resulting). Thankfully, 2-4 "decent" photos (less if you don't keep boss photos as a Bragging Rights Reward or get some perfect shots) is all it takes clear out every shop of their (limited but slowly respawning) inventory.

In Kingdom Hearts III, Sora's Gummiphone comes with a built-in camera. This produces two forms of sidequests that extend throughout the entire game. One is the Moogle Shops giving out Photo Missions; if Sora takes a picture of the subject they specify, the Moogles will add an item to the synthesis list. The other is the Lucky Emblem hunt, a quest to find ninety Hidden Mickeys scattered throughout the first eight worlds; the more Hidden Mickeys found, the more rewards acquired. Notably, the series-signature "extra objective that unlocks a Sequel HookStinger" element for this entry is also tied to this sidequest; exactly how many needed to unlock the secret ending varies with difficulty.note You'll need all 90 on Beginner, 60 on Standard, 30 on Proud, and none on Critical.

The Touhou games Shoot the Bullet and Double Spoiler, sort of. The games are shmups, photography is your only option, and it acts like a Smart Bomb, clearing all the bullets that you photograph. Taking photos of bosses earns you points based on several factors, most importantly how many bullets are in the picture.

Simulation Game

Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis let you pick up a few extra bucks if you took pictures of the dinosaurs in your park. Some missions require you to take photos of dinosaurs while in a car, like the one where you acquire 200 points taking pictures of predatory dinosaurs fighting each other, hunting, or eating.

Several of the Challenge mode quests and Campaigns for Zoo Tycoon 2 require you to photograph things in your zoo, usually animals or guests doing particular things.

Stealth Based Game

The Metal Gear Solid series. Taking pictures is required at least once in the series, and numerous Easter Eggs are available by snapping up photos of random innocuous things. Depending on what you snap you can find ghosts, have your CO call you a pervert, and confirm your best friend's doubts about your sexuality.

If you wait until the fourth Act to obtain the Camera in Metal Gear Solid 4, you'll find Otacon used it to take some photographs of Naomi.

In Spy Fiction you can disguise yourself as anyone you can photograph - either their outfit alone or their face depending on whether you can photograph them from the front or not. It makes the stealth sections remarkably easy.

Yandere Simulator uses photography as a major gameplay mechanic. Yandere-chan can take pictures of students to mail to Info-chan for information on them, pictures of Senpai for restoring sanity, and upskirt photos to send to Info-chan in exchange for favors. Be careful with pictures of corpses, though: if the police bring you in, any such photos on your phone will result in a Game Over.

lego.com once had a game centered around this where the player controls a remote control spy robot and must sneak up on suspects and take pictures of them and record conversations without them noticing in order to find a thief, called Robohunter 2: Spy City. (information on the first Robohunter game is hard to find, so it is unknown if it was the same)

Survival Horror

The whole premise of Fatal Frame (Project Zero in Japan) and its sequels is to take photographs of ghosts in order to seal them in your special camera. However, you also get bonuses for non-dangerous incidental ghosts.

In Eternal Darkness, Peter is a reporter, but you can't take pictures. You can, however, use his camera flash to stun enemies.

Third Person Shooter

Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) has the PKE Scanner, which you use to "scan" ghosts to get information on their fictional back stories, combat techniques, and which Proton Pack mode is best suited to breaking them down.

Warframe Update 11 added a "Codex Scanner" that can be used on enemies for xp as well as information on their health, weaknesses, strengths and items dropped.

Bully had quite a few missions and sidequests that involved taking pictures, which you could save if you wanted. The NPCs make direct mention of Jimmy having a camera.

The Endless Ocean games cast the main character as, among other things, a freelance photographer for diving magazines. Taking and selling pictures of various aquatic wildlife is an easy way to make money in the game. The second game tells you what (in theory) makes for a good picture by the game's standards

Frontier: Elite II has a class of military missions that involve taking pictures of an enemy installation on some uninhabited planet several light-years away.

inFAMOUS has a sidequest that inverts the trope: You need to do certain actions so someone else can take pictures of Cole.

inFAMOUS 2 has a few sidequests were Cole must photograph enemies to learn their weaknesses. This sadly doesn't affect normal gameplay.

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